Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Stadium deal bad for state

As an avid football fan, I am all for doing what it takes to keep the Seahawks in Seattle. But I see the current proposal as being wasteful and useless on the part of the state.

I don’t want to push my opinion on others, just want them to see some facts I think are important in deciding how to vote in the June 17 special election.

Despite the people of King County paying nearly 75 percent of the $425 million tab, Paul Allen is scheduled to keep all profits from stadium sponsors, seat licenses and concession agreements and even an open-ended percentage of revenue made from stadium operations (ticket sales).

Allen is fully capable of buying his own new facility for his business.

During 1995, the Seahawks pumped $66.7 million more into Seattle’s economy than the Mariners did, yet the Mariners have approval for a stadium that could be used for both sports without making taxpayers pay extra.

I would love to see a way to keep the Seahawks while using the designated stadium money for more urgent needs such as fighting poverty, repairing public roads and improving schools. One obvious possibility is letting Allen pick up more of the bill.

To tell Allen how you feel, send e-mail to Allen’s group, Football Northwest, at Sports2000@webtv.net or see its Web page at http://www.footballnw.com. Reid M. Smith Spokane

Give us stadium figures

I want someone to do the math before we’re asked to cast an informed vote a month from now.

A generation ago, it was popular for a wealthy benefactor to give funds to his school which would be used to build a classroom or laboratory. The donor’s name usually was inscribed over the doorway. Generations to come would appreciate this generosity. The schools eventually caught on. When a new building was proposed, additional funding for that building’s maintenance and operation also was required. Otherwise, no deal.

Isn’t there a similarity in this and the Seahawks stadium proposal?

Much has been written about how the $425 million stadium cost will be raised, then repaid. Nothing has been written about operating costs and staff salaries. Every homeowner knows there are operating, maintenance and replacement expenses to pay - even for a new house. A stadium has these also.

Staff writer Lynda Mapes, who has written extensively about the stadium proposal, should provide a simple spreadsheet showing the income and expense experiences with the Kingdome, the Mariners stadium now under construction and the proposed Seahawks facility.

The Kingdome is slated for demolition and allegedly is in debt for more than $120 million - hardly a financial triumph. The spreadsheet should show how the Kingdome was financed and operated.

Thus better informed, we should be able to keep costly mistakes from being repeated if the Seahawks stadium is built. Jon A. Holloway Spokane

Get facts on this good deal

How were the old Seattle Seahawks like a solar eclipse? You felt better once you quit watching but still felt like you got burned.

No joke, folks. The team’s gone. That is, unless you’re registered to vote and vote “yes” on June 17.

Good people of Washington state, please don’t be duped by the various groups that would have you believe little Johnny and grandma have to pay for this thing. It simply isn’t so. No one would have to pay a cent more with the stadium than without. It’s a wonderful opportunity for our entire state that goes well beyond football. You can’t lose, what with the guarantees and endorsements.

Please, hear the truth by calling Our Team Works at 466-0314 in Spokane or 1-888-PRO-HAWK, toll-free. Opponents are trying to mislead you, so please call. You’ll be speaking to a volunteer, not some rich guy’s employee.

Let me spell it out. You will not pay anything on this unless you: Buy a Seahawks scratch ticket, go to a Seahawks game, park at the new stadium or pay $2 on a $100 hotel/motel room. The room tax already was in place in King County only and goes toward paying off the existing Kingdome debt. Mike S. Hart Elk

FIREARMS

Only the deluded are giving up guns

The blatantly anti-gun article, “Turn in a gun, receive a gift - and give public health a lift,” May 7, was slick propaganda. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if the pro-gun groups were given equal space to respond?

The claim that a gun in the home is “43 times” more likely to kill a family member than an intruder is ludicrous. Dr. Gary Kleck’s well-documented research shows that armed Americans thwart some 2.5 million crimes annually.

According to the article, guns are the leading cause of death among people 15 to 24 years old. Oh, really? Among 15- to 24-year-old gang members, perhaps.

For children under 14, vehicles, fires, drowning and choking are far more deadly than firearms. Perhaps the politically correct stooges should declare vehicles to be a public health issue.

Would the suicides stop if guns were not available? Gunless Japan has a suicide rate twice what ours is.

Also, law enforcement statistics show that murders are being committed by strangers, not by family members and acquaintances as the gun abolition terrorists assert.

The National Safety Council reports that gun accidents are 0.5 per 100,000 population - an all-time low.

Those naive people who are turning in their firearms for a “gift” are succumbing to anti-gun lobby hysteria, propaganda, lies and scare tactics.

Benjamin Franklin said,”Those who give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Curtis E. Stone Colville, Wash.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Next time, let Clark handle it

Regarding Doug Clark’s May 15 column concerning the Sacajawea Middle School break-in:

As a Spokane resident, I feel you, Clark, do all of us a disservice with your inflammatory, misinformed and childish remarks regarding the response and actions of the police in the Sacajawea break-in.

How many doors and windows are there at that facility that would have lent themselves as an escape route? What is the square footage that had to be searched? What priority should this call get in relation to an armed standoff in a highly populated area?

I have a good idea. Next time the police get a motion alarm in a large, dark facility with lots of places to hide, they can call Clark, the fleet of tongue and brain, to begin an immediate search, armed with his mighty poison pen. Deborah D. Case Spokane

Picking on police uncalled for

I don’t appreciate an article where you felt it was necessary to ridicule and demean officers for doing their job. I applaud the officers for showing restraint and using caution.

If they had rushed into the building without securing it first and those responsible for vandalizing the school had escaped through a back door, would you still criticize? You need to ride along with the police for a week and see what it’s like.

Also, these officers are taxpaying citizens. Dorothy A. Benoit Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Accentuate rehabilitation

Crime has hit Eastern Washington especially hard in the last two years. More and more youths are found to be responsible for reckless and heinous crimes, committing robberies, murders and more.

Many times, when these kids are caught, they show no signs of remorse or distress over their predicament. We have compiled many reasons for why kids act the way they do. However, what do we do about punishing these young criminals?

Research has shown that sentencing criminals to death is far more expensive than sentencing them to life in prison.

I propose that we use our tax dollars to cater to the needs of these troubled individuals. Research also has shown that more than 75 percent of youths who commit crimes come from troubled homes. Give these youths the help they so desperately need and give them another chance at life. Give them a chance to redeem themselves and contribute to the community.

What have we to lose by trying this proposal? Cheriya L. Scott Spokane

Put kids to work and fine parents

Today’s paper featured an article regarding the prosecutor’s plans for the two 13-year-old suspects in the recent vandalism at Sacajawea Middle School. One year in detention would be ineffective; in fact, the boys would come out with even greater hostility and anger.

To make the punishment effective, the prosecutor should require one year or longer of public service and send the parents a bill for repairs. The boys had “nothing to do but get bored,” so mandatory public service would fill that void.

Informing the public that the irresponsible parents have a $40,000 or $50,000 debt could be a very effective wake-up call for parents of other middle-school-age children unsupervised during nighttime hours. John D. Brown Spokane

Drug war, sentencing schemes wrong

I recently read about Randall Price’s problems with the law. For being convicted of marijuana cultivation of 99 plants, he was sentenced to 30 days of community service. If he had had one more plant, the outcome would have been quite different.

A few years ago, a neighbor of ours was caught with 114 plants. Under federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws, he was sentenced to five years without parole. The judge was bound by these unfair laws and legally unable to give this good man a more reasonable sentence.

The U.S. attorney also saw fit to confiscate the home this neighbor had built for his family, their 40 acres, cars, truck and even his wife’s sewing machine. His wife, eight children and three grandchildren struggle to survive, materially and emotionally, while he wastes away in a federal warehouse hundreds of miles from home.

Unfortunately, this story is not uncommon. There are thousands of similar cases. They are about men and women who are of no benefit to their family and community while being incarcerated.

I’m glad Price didn’t have 100 plants or his story would have been radically different. When will this prohibition end and free choice return? Let’s put an end to this insane drug war. Consuelo Doherty Kettle Falls, Wash.

HIGHER EDUCATION

EWU is its own worst enemy

This is an appeal to people in our community who have been given a great measure of trust. I am speaking to the board of trustees of Eastern Washington University and anyone to whom it listens.

I am a junior at EWU and looking at my future. Recently, one of my professors (a tenured instructor) was upset by something he’d read in a faculty-only publication. EWU’s enrollment has been steadily declining over the past few years, and many people here have made suggestions for ways to alleviate this problem. What had my professor in an outrage was this: The university administration will be cutting low-enrollment courses (too bad for those students), enlarging classes (so we get less personal contact with instructors) and then advertising (spending money we already lack) for this senseless program.

Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but if I saw an advertisement for a university that had fewer class options and more crowding in the classes that were left, I’d think about going somewhere else - to a university that seems to care more about its students.

The administration can’t see the logic in retaining smaller classes and reducing tuition to attract more students. It ought to pay attention to the professors it has hired to teach advertising methods.

I’m too far along to make it worth my while to transfer, and I enjoy my classes. I will stick it out, then hope and pray when I get out of here that my prospective employer has never even heard of EWU’s way of doing business. Christopher B. Price Cheney

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Goal is legitimizing depravity

Because homosexual couples express love for each other, the public must sanction their union? Love does not establish a relationship as moral or even healthy.

Lift the veil of homosexual rhetoric and one finds unbridled promiscuity, massive use of pornography, sadomasochistic propensities as well as high rates of homosexual pedophila. The problem with books such as “Heather Has Two Mommies” is that they represent a narrow, sanitized version of homosexual addiction.

The diversity homosexual enthusiasts want us to value is perverted sexual behavior. This has nothing to do with respecting people. What is being taught is not respect of diversity but tolerance of depravity.

A family’s good name once motivated parents to restrain their impulses and act responsibly for the benefit of their children. Now, we see homosexuals hiding behind their children, hurling insults at society because that society will not guarantee their children a good name by sanctioning homosexual misbehavior.

The homosexual activists’ goal is to get the real world to say that the emperor is beautifully dressed. They want us to clothe their abnormal unions with the sanctity of marriage. If the consequences of homosexual living can be removed, the hope is that more young people will choose to wear the mantle. All we’d do, however, is abandon the homosexual and our children to disease and despair in a lifestyle that does not bring any real satisfaction or security, physically or emotionally.

The emperor indeed has no clothes. Susan Van Engelen Spokane

Poor folks have good ways

Re: the May 12 letter, “Poor folks have poor ways”: Wow! I am still in shock at this person’s ignorance.

I came from a well-to-do family that had poor ways. It wasn’t difficult to get out of bed in the morning to go to work. That was easy probably because we weren’t poor, right? Wrong. The poor ways they had were difficulty in the love department and communication. These are educated people, mind you.

Poor people I have met in my 42 years usually have had a lot of love, have had natural communications skills and have fought at least twice as hard in life to prove themselves. Laziness comes from all walks of life. Poor people seem to be so much more fun. Their personalities are like no others. Great comedy comes from the poor.

I recall on several occasions getting in trouble for so-called “crossing the tracks.” The poor people are so much more interesting. Creativity, poems, great paintings and books come from the poor. Maybe they were lying in bed when all this came to mind - who knows? Roberta Lynn Best Spokane